Louis Comfort Tiffany

American, b. 1848 - d. 1933

Birth-PlaceNew York, New York, United States, North America

Biographyfrom The Metropolitan Museum of Art website (http://www.metmuseum.org)
Louis C. Tiffany webpage
(http://www.metmuseum.org/explore/Tiffany/tiff_index.html) [retrieved 03/18/2004]

"Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848–1933) embodied the artistic spirit of the Gilded Age. His career spanned more than half a century, from the 1870s to the mid-1920s—a time of experimentation, intense scrutiny of aesthetic ideals, and proliferation of new styles. Tiffany demonstrated a multitude of talents as an architect and painter and as a designer of interiors, landscapes, and all of the decorative arts. Together with his studios of artists, glassmakers, stonemasons, mosaicists, modelers, metalworkers, wood-carvers, potters, and textileworkers, Tiffany heralded in America the notion of continuity of design, orchestrating pattern, texture, color, and light to produce a single aesthetic expression."

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from the Tiffany & Co. website (Archives FAQ webpage):
(http://www.tiffany.com/service/faq_display_one.asp?faq_id=43&FAQ_TYPE=2&from=&) [retrieved 03/18/2004]

What can you tell me about Louis Comfort Tiffany?
"Louis Comfort Tiffany, the son of Tiffany & Co.'s founder, Charles Lewis Tiffany, worked in glass and other decorative media beginning in the late 1870's. He founded many different firms, including Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company and Tiffany Studios. Tiffany & Co. often purchased merchandise from Tiffany Studios. Later, Louis Comfort Tiffany became the first design director of Tiffany & Co. although he continued his association with Tiffany Studios. Upon his death in 1933, Tiffany Studios ceased operations. The Tiffany & Co. Archives only contain information on Louis Comfort Tiffany's jewelry."

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condensed from an essay by F. H. Perrell, in the catalogue "Louis Comfort Tiffany and Standford White," exhibition at the Nassau County Museum of Art, as it appears in the Carl Heck Decorative Arts website:
(http://www.carlheck.com/tiffany.html) [retrieved 03/18/2004]

1875-1878 = begun his glass experiments, when he was working at glasshouses in Brooklyn

1879-1885 = formed and operated firm "Louis Comfort Tiffany and Associated American Artists" with Samuel Colman and Lockwood de Forest

1885 = Tiffany chose to concentrate on art in glass, establishing his new business, incorporating the first "Tiffany Glass Company" on December 1, 1885; located in Corona, Queens, NY

1885-1928 = Tiffany Glass Company/Tiffany Studios in business

1900 = "Tiffany Glass Company” became known as "Tiffany Studios"

1902 = became Artistic Director of Tiffany & Co. after his father's death in 1902, and the company sold many Tiffany Studios wares

after 1919 = sometimes used the factory's name and mark of "Tiffany Furnaces;" Also called "Tiffany Glass Furnaces"

1893 = exhibited at the World's Fair in Chicago

c. 1895 = Tiffany's first commercially produced lamps

after 1900 = Tiffany Studios produced a wide array of objects employing glass, and other diverse materials

1933 or 1938 = firm closed sometime after Tiffany's death in 1833

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